A young woman finds herself torn between the promise of autonomous adulthood and the demands of subservience to a lover in Stolen Life, a contemporary feminist parable by acclaimed 6th Generation Chinese Filmmaker Li Shaohong (Blush). For… MoreA young woman finds herself torn between the promise of autonomous adulthood and the demands of subservience to a lover in Stolen Life, a contemporary feminist parable by acclaimed 6th Generation Chinese Filmmaker Li Shaohong (Blush). For Yanni (Zhou Xun), life has never been easy; bereft by her mother at six years old and shuttled off to live with her grandmother and aunt, she felt neither loved nor accepted. Yanni's future prospects unexpectedly open up six years later, when her biological mother and father turn up and promise to send the 14-year-old through university. Just when the horizon looks brightest, however, Yanni's path haphazardly crisscrosses with that of a handsome truck driver, Mu-yu (Wu Jun) who plies her with flattery and gifts - to such a degree that he inadvertently sways her away from her studies and convinces her to move into his dank and sordid sub-floor apartment. In complete disregard for her own future, she begins to spend every waking moment with Mu-yu, makes him the focal point of her universe, and may even sacrifice collegiate enrollment simply to be with him. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

The filmmaker takes stock with brutal candor of the traumatic turn of events in new market economy China, as the national social support system in place is increasingly dismantled for the sake of foreign greed and profit.

Kelly Vance

East Bay Express

For all its rough immediacy and cool tone, Stolen Life is nothing more or less than an old-fashioned class-antagonism melodrama.